On the biblicality of beauty

In conversation with French photographer Vincent Ferrané on constructions of beauty and the enigmatic nature of contemporary iconography

Brigitte Bardot once told a story about seeing Marilyn Monroe on the day they were to meet the Queen. Upon describing the occasion, Bardot confessed: ‘I was very nervous. We had to rehearse every detail.’ The ladies were not allowed to wear black, as only the Queen could do that, nor were they permitted to wear low-cut dresses. ‘All sorts of silly stuff.’ Moments before meeting the monarch, she rushed to the ladies’ dressing room to check if her make-up was alright. ‘And who do I see? Marilyn.’ There they stood together, each powdering her nose, looking at one another and saying small hellos. As Bardot recalls: ‘She was ravishing, as cute as anything. In that little dressing room in Buckingham Palace.’ The year was 1957; a lot about being a woman has changed since then, but the ambiguity surrounding aesthetic standards has largely prevailed. We’re all still striving for something we can’t seem to describe, engaged in a culturally choreographed routine that demands our wearing of veils stitched from standards imposed by faceless, enigmatic forces.

‘I think she was very vulnerable behind her sexy looks,’ Bardot mused of Monroe years after their encounter. ‘She was fresh, beautiful, pure, and very touching … I believe the people who surrounded her probably destroyed her.’ 

To be the picture of something is never the same as being the thing itself, nor is being a beauty icon the same as being human. The former demands a physical beauty that is often punctuated with a certain je ne sais quoi; the latter requires a surrendering to the raw, imperfect nature of the multifaceted self. Once a role reserved solely for women such as Bardot and Monroe, the beauty icons of today are increasingly emerging from alternative echelons of life, from the eclectic to the entrepreneurial, as stunning and successful as they are (seemingly) self-made.

One such modern “it” girl is Parisian-born Jeanne Damas, the subject of artist Vincent Ferrané’s latest book, Iconography. Both model and entrepreneur, Damas is a woman who undeniably embodies many—if not all—of the modern (human-made) facets of the ever-elusive feminine ideal, enjoying a global cult status made possible by the reach she has achieved via her social media networks. Drawing back the veil of the digitisation of Damas’s daily life, Ferrané’s series explores the finer details of her feminine fabrication, seeking to probe and question the subtext of her status—in doing so, illuminating the enigmatic nature of transient cultural constructs, both the sinister and the sublime. For beauty is nothing but the beginning of terror, as Rainer Maria Rilke once said, which we are barely able to endure, and it amazes us so.

KATHRYN CARTER: You were raised in the centre of Paris, considered to be one of the most stylish cities in the world. As a child, do you remember noticing the way women looked?
VINCENT FERRANÉ: Yes, I grew up in Paris, and I keep from my childhood an idea of Parisian elegance, which was [all about] maintaining very strong codes related to social class and gender. In the ’80s and ’90s, elegant women were seen in luxury ads and very often [used] to praise products marketed to males—cars, watches, cigars. One could also see women with a very strong [sense of] style in the streets, at concerts and demonstrations, but from specific music or urban subcultures. The latter were affirming their position [in society] more so than searching for a so-called “elegance”. Things did not seem to mix much at that time, and that is totally different today. 

Your latest book, Iconography: XXV Figures of Jeanne Damas, features a series of images of the French “it” girl who, in many ways, represents the ideal (or idealised) modern woman. What first inspired this idea?
We live, I believe, in an exciting time for representation. Within this context, some figures can emerge as emblematic of a form of essentialisation, no doubt because a certain subculture remains attached to this definition. If we ask this same audience what it really means to be a French woman, or to define the concept of Parisian chic, one inevitably arrives at an aporia.

But in the end, the definition does not matter, because whether these visual references have a semantic base or not, they still end up existing by [enigmatic] manifestations, and it is these manifestations that are interesting to look at, to study, and to question.

Can you tell us a little more about Jeanne Damas and what it is about her that makes her such an intriguing subject?
Jeanne Damas is a model, influencer, and entrepreneur, hence she has appeared in both fashion magazines and, more recently, economic magazines. Online, she uses her Instagram account to publish photos from her daily life to her 1.2 million followers. So, she represents an ideal, or rather idealised, public figure, one who strategically uses stereotypes of seduction and who draws on her own contours.

It is to this [style of] representation that I decided to attach myself [in my images], so I used Jeanne’s Instagram feed as a research database. I then extracted a number of images that I sorted and classified from the standpoint of the representation of women in the history of art, in painting, sculpture, and cinema. [While shooting,] I let Jeanne play out various scenarios on a neutral background across a number of images and in recurring poses in various contexts—fashion shoots, evening parties, daily rituals, make-up tutorials. It is this role, this mise en abyme of the construction and representation of the self, that I have documented.

It’s hard to separate the theme of beauty from this body of work in particular, given that Damas is such a beauty icon. Did you consciously try to make these images “beautiful”, or was it more about capturing something else?
If we were to take this series as a [pure] aesthetic study, I could say that I treated the subject by telling her that beauty meets a set of rules and codes, but that the charm is what touches within that beauty, and it’s this charm that is probably what always escapes these recipes [of beauty]. The most important thing [to me] is what French philosopher Vladimir Jankélévitch referred to, in music, as something between an “I do not know what” (je ne sais quoi) and an “almost nothing” (le presque rien). This indefinable, unclassifiable something that touches you, where the whole is greater than the sum of the parts.

What do you hope, if anything, readers will experience when exploring the pages of this book?
I think that people who know Jeanne Damas will find portraits that are quite elegant, intimate, and faithful to her character. But if you do not know her, or do not want to stop at this first reading, you will see, I hope, an enigmatic portrait that explores the staging of female beauty as we see it nowadays, everywhere. The series could feel like a behind-the-scenes photographic exposé of this show, focusing on elements which have become archetypal in nature by their repetition throughout the course of history.

Today, we consume more and more images, some by actively searching [for them], but mostly passively. What interests me is that the images are never innocuous; they always convey hidden meanings and, with regards to the body, a political dimension too. Let’s say that the images display signs that are no longer questioned, simply considered as natural, whereas they are [in fact] the fruits of a dynamic history. This series, conceived as a puzzle, puts in the center the enigma of representation and, in this case, of self-representation.

The ways in which women choose to present themselves to the world have historically been more women’s business, so to speak. Beauty parlors, for instance, have generally been seen as places for women to congregate with one another, environments free of men. How did it feel shooting this series with its strong focus on the intimate, largely behind-the-scenes life of a woman, as a male photographer?
To prepare the series, as there is no idol without idolatry, I tried a little to put myself in the shoes of a fan of Jeanne Damas. But this fan could identify as either male or female, I think. I tried to tell myself that this fan would be someone who looks eagerly at everything that emanates from Damas. What could he or she grab, collect, keep from this idol? This fan could, of course, copy her gestures, her clothes, her style, but they could also push things further by seeking and desiring to know the images of her core identity—her passport, her fingerprints—perhaps left in her make-up, as proof of her presence. They could search for her destiny in the lines of her hand, or keep as a relic the traces of lipstick on her cigarette butts. How can a collection of images express these desires? That is what I asked myself.

In 1900, The Denver Post printed the following words: ‘Female beauty represents a power more absolute and more intoxicating than any other earthly despotism.’ One may assume that this means beautiful women hold power. In reality, it is often external cultural forces that influence our perception of what it actually means to be beautiful, thus attaching a criteria to a woman’s right to hold the power that beauty is said to deliver. In your opinion, who decides what it means to be a beautiful woman in today’s day and age?
In the Western canon, there is said to be a treaty of Polyclète, a Greek artist who once defined the rules of proportions for beauty in sculpture as a set of numerical relations between the different parts of the body. However, this treaty has been lost, and only indirect traces of it remain. I find it funny that from the very beginning there was an idea of rules, of reference points that were strict but non-verifiable, and [eventually] lost. That is still the case today. The rules seem to be strong but they are inscribed nowhere, and they always fluctuate and evolve.

For many, Damas embodies the modern “it” girl, which is by no means a recent concept, beginning in the ’30s and expanding with famous figures such as Marylin Monroe, Brigitte Bardot, or Jane Birkin—women who have brought the figure of the sex symbol into the modern period. Nevertheless, what I find interesting with Damas is that she has built her image by herself. She has benefitted, of course, from agents and advisers along the way, but has not been assisted by Pygmalions or intermediaries like other women who have risen to “it” girl status. Damas is like an “it” girl 2.0, showing her own life as she builds it herself. The media report her activity, but they do not orchestrate it, nor do they create it. Of course, what is shown by Damas is not the entirety of her life; it is a selective prism. As her success comes, it asserts a figure of beauty, certainly, but also one of power and of independence. It is this figure that is represented in Iconography.

Women have been wearing some degree of make-up since before Marie Antoinette used to dab her face with mixtures of talc, buttermilk, and honey. Even so, it seems that modern women are being sold the idea that in order to be beautiful, they need more products than ever before—from primers to finishing powders and a whole range of lotions and potions in between. As a photographer who has photographed many women in a number of different settings, what is your opinion of the high-maintenance and at times unrealistic nature of the modern female beauty ideal?
Men’s make-up is out of fashion at the moment, but in the 18th century, a nobleman could not appear without make-up, powder, and a wig. The word “make-up” was [actually] born in this period, but in a pejorative sense. To “make up” was to make up the cards; it meant cheating, lying. What I find interesting in this series is how these elements seem to be applied to women by women themselves—beauty tutorials, for instance, have become their own genre, appearing to promote both constraints upon as well as elements of the self.

Reflections on these ideals of beauty have indeed come to me as a photographer; if you’re not aware of them, you risk participating in them. As a photographer, you must always compose within the thread between the truth and the lie, or rather between what will be perceived as a truth or as a lie.

Your photographs often unveil the authenticity that is sometimes lost in aestheticism. What is your take on the ways in which the industry at large currently represents (often painstakingly constructed) images of modern women?
Recently, the French government forced legislation to impose the mention ‘retouched photograph’ on all commercial photos where the appearance of models has been modified. One can praise this kind of initiative so that the exposure to unrealistic images of the body does not have [such] a negative impact on the mind. It also now makes it possible to measure the extent to which the [negative] impact of retouched images would be reinforced without the weapons to read or decode them being mastered by everyone. In particular, one may now wonder if it is necessary to educate people on how these modified images are produced.

Modernity is both terrific and wonderful because it is dynamic and fast. With the current wave of change in regards to the ways we represent the female body in images, integrated by fashion and advertisers alike, it seems that notions of [greater] diversity and body positivity are finally on the way. Today, a larger range of communities is represented, and imperfections are not as frequently erased on Photoshop. Only time will tell if this is just an opportunistic approach of image prescribers or indeed a real change to achieve a less alienating representation to which our society aspires so deeply. 

The icon of the Virgin Mary, considered to be the Lady of Perpetual Help, has inspired devotion for centuries and is honored in hundreds of thousands of homes and churches throughout the world. Do you feel that, within the context of our materialistic age, the beautiful modern woman is to our contemporary culture what the Virgin Mary is to certain religious sects?
I don’t think we can talk about devotion of beautiful, modern women in general. What is true, however, is that the materialistic era produces materialistic figures. What also seems important, to me, is to take the Virgin Mary, whose adoration was conditioned by her remaining charismatic, whether that charisma was regarded as virginal or not, and contrast it to a modern woman, who can appear as a model of power by mixing representations of purity, chastity, and seduction or sexuality without it being frowned upon.

An interesting point. I suppose the image of women has been allowed to evolve to a certain extent, although it remains arguable as to the level of further emancipation—both metaphorical and literal—that is still necessary in today’s society, no matter what your sex or gender. In theory, do you think it would be fair to describe a woman such as Damas as a lady of perpetual beauty?
Nothing is perpetual in beauty, since societies create codes, adopt them, and then abandon them as they create new ones.

Given the degree to which we follow and worship “it” girls online, do you feel that social media platforms could almost be described as the digital altars of the age?
We are only just beginning to grasp the power social networks hold over our lives. We realise the extent of this power even more, I believe, because permanently connected generations are now growing up without having known the world as it was before [the digital revolution]. Since the rise of social media, social relationships have totally changed. However, this adoration here, through online platforms, is always terrestrial, temporary, fluctuating. The platforms themselves are [also] subject to the risks of replacement and of falling out of favour, so there is no aspiration to the sanctity or sacred here [I feel].

For Iconography, you say you took inspiration from classic contrapposto postures, as well as from the figures of odalisque women and film femme fatales. Can you tell us more about these decisions, in terms of how you wanted Damas to be portrayed?
I wanted to perform a study of unspoken rules of beauty, taking inspiration from the Instagram feed of a young woman now considered an icon, looking at every detail which she deems necessary to show. I used these images as a bible, a database. In the final series, many of the visual elements are borrowed from contrapposto poses, which designate postures where the line of the hips and the line of the shoulders are reversed—silhouettes that we usually find in representations of classical figures such as Venus.

For this project, I [also] used many close-ups and fragmented images, as I found that these corresponded well to the way we look at images through social networks, fleetingly and in a piecemeal fashion, inviting a sense of generality to the experience of the image that is made to fly without particular acuity.

I employed what struck me as codified poses and objects, then treated them as simple tools or as material proofs of this [woman’s] universe, photographing them in a very raw way. In this way, an eyelash curler loses its dimension of scale; [as such] it can look like a weapon or a surgical instrument, a metal tool loaded with force.

Were most of the images shot in Iconography staged, or are some more candid in nature, reflecting Damas’s habitat in an unfiltered and unedited fashion?
All images are staged here; nothing is candid, which is what differentiates the series a little from my previous work. This introduces an intimacy and the idea that beauty must be staged if it wants to be credible, that nothing exists by nature but only by codes, such as movements and grooming gestures that are studied, learnt, and reproduced. Working with these postures with everyday objects shows us how it works, not only for Damas but for all of us every day, as we wear our costumes, prepare our shows.

How important was this use of everyday objects, such as comb brushes, in the pictorial portrayal of Damas’s intimate world?
These objects expose tangible elements of an inner world to which one does not [ordinarily] have access. They specify that the construction of the character of Damas involves tools that are [not only] useful for the development of beauty but that are also representations, in themselves, of a displayed fetishism, to place the viewer in a sensual universe of beauty.

In the 1920s, there was an association made between cosmetics and independence—almost a liberation for women who were finally gaining the rights to do what they wanted with their bodies. Cosmetics were thus seen as a symbol of freedom. Do you think you could liken the beauty and grooming products seen in the frames of Damas to weaponry that is, in some way, fighting the ongoing war against female suppression?
I think it is necessary to treat [this issue] with distance and to consider the whole spectrum of what can sometimes appear for some as an alienation related to beauty or appearance and for others as a sign of revolt and freedom.

Japanese author and poet Yukio Mishima once said that ‘True beauty is something that attacks, overpowers, robs, and finally destroys.’ What is beauty, to you?
I would say that I try to keep a sense of wonder, an attitude to the world that makes me sensitive to the many beauties, because there are numerous [kinds], and the strongest of them come to you in new, unexpected, and mysterious forms.

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Iconography: 25 Figures of Jeanne Damas, Libraryman 2019
Photographs by Vincent Ferrané / @vincentferrane featuring Jeanne Damas @jeannedamas

www.vincentferrane.com // www.libraryman.se/vincent-ferrane-iconography